Tony Morrison

Toni Morrison was born in Lorrain, Ohio in 1931. She has spoken of the ´oral library´ she grew up with, being surrounded by storytellers, and she also read widely from Tolstoy to Austen. She got her BA (Bachelor of Arts) at Howard University in Washington and her MA (Master of Arts) from Cornell University in New York. She went on to teach English at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas and then returned to teach at Howard for six years.

In 1965 she became a Senior Editor at Random House and in 1970 published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, followed by Sula in 1973. Both were well reviewed but it was with her third novel, The Song of Solomon, that she found a national and international audience and both critical and public acclaim.

Morrison retired from Random House in 1984 but has continued to work as a visiting Professor at various universities, including Princeton. She went on to publish the novels Tar Baby, Jazz, Love and Paradise and, most recently, A Mercy and she has also published critical essays. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1987 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Morrison describes how her books begin with a question, and come out of her exploration of the themes that emerge. She has written extensively on the nature of love, or rather different kinds of love, on the issues of freedom, agency and self-sufficiency – both individual and societal. In style, her books range from the lyrical to the epic. Many of her books combine the classical themes of great literature with folklore and the conventions of oral storytelling. Critics have often highlighted both the formal beauty of her writing and her ear for dialogue.